“A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers.” — Albert Camus

THE NOOSE OF NEWS

I

Trying to make myself comfortable in that dingy conference room, I couldn’t avoid inhaling the pungent and rather soothing smell of newsprint that permeated the place. Situated in a narrow bylane of Jalandhar, this cramped, two-room space acts as the makeshift office of a Punjabi weekly that proudly boasts to be a mouthpiece of the suppressed Dalit voices and the political organization avowing to represent their interests, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

The most striking aspect of the social upheaval being fomented at Dera Sach Khand, Ballan, is the pervasive inconspicuousness; quite obviously so, as it is now the home to the newest religion in Punjab, or probably the whole of India – Ravidassia Dharam – a symbolic act of defiance by the angst-ridden Dalit community that witnessed the assassination of one of its religious leaders, Rama Nand.

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1, OCTOBER 2011
Battle-Ready for the Fifth Dimension:
Assessing India’s Cyber-Defence
Preparedness
Pukhraj Singh*
This article provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at the cyber war and cyber defence
capabilities being developed by various great powers and situates India’s own developments
in this field within the larger context of emerging threats and modernisation of warfare.
The author ascribes the Stuxnet worm of 2010 to be a big eye opener which helped
place India’s cyber security systems on a war footing. He also depicts a future cyber
war scenario in which web-based weapons are integrated into conventional armouries
to achieve the perfect fifth dimension of warfare. The article also describes how experts
and analysts of strategic affairs who are outside the secretive government establishments
dealing with cyber war can contribute to meaningful reforms, institutions and changes
that can facilitate multilateral responses in the form of a global cyber security regime.